reasoning faculties insurmountably barred. Yet this is precisely what is
demanded of us by Mediums in regard to Independent Slate Writing. We
must sign a dispensation to forego the exercise of common sense, and
accept as 'fact' what they choose so to term. Few assertions by departed
Spirits are more hacknied than, 'This is a great truth,' and yet in an
honest endeavor to prove that it is a 'great truth;' and not a great
lie, the sincere and earnest seeker is at every turn baffled and
thwarted.

To eliminate from our investigations every element of distrust, or
hostility, or suspicion, or chilling antagonism, we entrusted to Mr.
Hazard's friend, Mrs. Patterson, vouched for by him as one of the very
best Mediums in the country, two carefully closed and sealed slates,
enclosing, of course, the required piece of slate-pencil, with the
earnest entreaty that the Spirits should write therein even if it were
but the merest mark, sign, or scratch, therewith we would be content,
and be ready to accept Independent Slate Writing with its train of
consequences. The Medium was fully impressed with the importance of the
trial, and with the fame which would thereby accrue from such a
wholesale conversion as that of the united Seybert Commission.

Every Medium, it would appear, is under the special tutelage of a
departed Spirit; this Spirit is termed the 'Medium's control.' In the
present case, when the slates were delivered to Mrs. Patterson, her
'control,' one 'Thomas Lister,' at once promised that Spirit hands
should shortly write within the sealed-up space. But no writing came
that day nor the next, nor the next, although the Medium protested that
every attention should be bestowed on the refractory slates. In vain was
the Medium again and again adjured to put forth every power. At the end
of six months the slates were received again, without any writing,